The Gilded Age was the penultimate period of the America’s Industrial Revolution. The rise of the railroad, oil, and steel industries supported massive economic and geographic expansion. Electric power gave rise to the light bulb and telephone. And, nearly a generation after the Civil War, power politics between Democrats and Republicans had resurfaced. If the Gilded Age had a face, it would arguably be the face of one of two men: Theodore Roosevelt or Henry Cabot Lodge.
An Early Political Test
As young politicians, however, they nearly ruined their careers early during the 1884 Republican National Convention in Chicago. The two were duty bound to vote for the candidate their respective delegates had selected. That candidate was James G. Blaine. The problem was that, as Jurdem explained during an interview on The Sons of History podcast, Blaine had been implicated along with several other republicans in the Crédit Mobilier railroad scandal.
“That really rocked the Gilded Age,” Jurdem said.
For Roosevelt and Lodge, Blaine was not fit for the office of the president. The two were stuck between their principles and their political duty.
“Roosevelt and Lodge still believed in the Founders’ vision of what a president should be. They believed in the idea of virtue, disinterestedness, integrity, honor, long-term thinking, [and] not taking political positions for economic or personal gain,” Jurdem said. “Even though they tried to find someone as a replacement, they were not successful.”
Had they chosen not to abide by their delegates’ choices, both would have ended their political careers nearly before they had begun. Even so, supporting Blaine proved to have its repercussions.
“This caused Lodge, more than Roosevelt, a number of problems,” Jurdem said. “He lost his congressional bid. He alienated all the Radical Republicans who lived on Beacon Hill. He was ostracized from Boston society. It was something he never got over.”
A Powerful Friendship
From these social and political hardships arose a powerful and enduring friendship between Lodge and Roosevelt. The two consistently corresponded and were sources of encouragement and motivation for each other. When Roosevelt returned to New York from the Territory in 1886, he ran for mayor of New York City, but lost. In 1888, Lodge, who was by then a congressman, helped get Roosevelt appointed to the U.S. Civil Service Commission by the newly elected Republican president, Benjamin Harrison. The Democrat president Grover Cleveland renewed Roosevelt’s position in 1893.
In 1895, Roosevelt became president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners. With the 1896 election of President William McKinley, Roosevelt was appointed to the position of assistant secretary of the Navy in 1897. With a disinterested Secretary of the Navy John Davis Long, Roosevelt found himself very busy. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Roosevelt resigned from his position and ultimately formed the Rough Riders. His military exploits practically made his celebrity complete. He rode that celebrity to the governorship of New York.
Much like he had done in Washington as a member of the civil service, however, he quickly rankled the political elite’s feathers. Soon the political establishment, led by Republican party boss Thomas Platt, sought his ouster.
“He refused to kowtow to the political establishment in New York,” Mr. Jurdem said. “At one point, Platt literally said, ‘I want that bastard out of New York.’”
‘Nobody can know’
In November of 1899, toward the end of McKinley’s first term, Vice President Garret Hobart died. He was not replaced, and the position remained open through the election year of 1900. The open position, nestled so close to the most powerful political seat in the land, gave Lodge an idea.“When Roosevelt came to the realization―Lodge had realized this long before―that he was not going to be nominated for a second term as governor, Lodge said [that] the vice presidency is the only place for you to be,” Jurdem said. “Initially Roosevelt didn’t want it. There were all these negative reasons why Roosevelt didn’t want the position. Edith Roosevelt, his wife, didn’t want it. His sister, Bamie, really didn’t want it. In fact, she and Lodge got into an argument at her house in Washington. Lodge simply implied she was out of her head, and she more or less threw him out of her house for saying that.
“Lodge, for whatever reason, had a sixth sense about him, where from the moment he met TR in 1884, he really did believe that, to quote [Franklin Delano Roosevelt], ‘he had a rendezvous with destiny.’ It is very prescient that soon after Roosevelt accepted and was lamenting to Lodge … Lodge said to him, ‘Nobody can know what will happen in four years’ time.’ And boy was he right.”
Friends Divided
The power of both men, however, cannot be overstated. Roosevelt held the highest office, while Lodge held sway over the Republican senators (as Senate majority leader). As their power increased, so did their political differences.“Lodge was always about protecting the Republican Party, keeping it in the majority. That really was his role during Roosevelt’s presidency,” Jurdem said. “While Roosevelt moved over and started listening to people like [Chief of Forestry] Gifford Pinchot and [Secretary of the Interior] James R. Garfield, Lodge would be running from Wall Street in New York to State Street in Boston, trying to appease the conservative behemoths in the Republican Party.
“Roosevelt would get up and give these speeches on the Square Deal that would terrify people throughout the Republican Party. Lodge was so connected with everybody within the GOP that he would constantly hear and receive notes from people worrying. Lodge would always say, ‘Don’t worry. It’s going to be OK.’ But eventually it’s not OK. During 1910, TR goes off on this progressive rant where he talks about direct election of senators, allowing property to be taken through eminent domain, judges being recalled if the public doesn’t like their decisions. Lodge thinks ‘This is nutty stuff and I can’t support somebody like this.’ That is really what led to this break. But I think the break had been coming for some time because Roosevelt, when he became president, really started to move out of Lodge’s orbit both politically and as that mentor he had had from the beginning.”
Friendship Over Politics
During the 1912 primary, the two had a severe disagreement. Jurdem said they were polite to each other at public functions, but for a time, the two rarely talked or corresponded. An attitude completely contrary to their near daily correspondence over the previous 25-plus years. Lodge, despite being the political animal, didn’t view his relationship with Roosevelt as a political football.“To Lodge’s credit, during the primary, he informed Roosevelt that the friendship they had developed over those many years was far too important to allow politics to interfere,” Jurdem said.
Roosevelt, as a third party candidate, lost the 1912 election to the Democrat Woodrow Wilson; he did receive more votes than the incumbent Taft. Despite politics causing a strain on the Roosevelt-Lodge friendship, it was their disdain for Wilson’s politics that brought them back together.
Throughout the Gilded Age and after, Roosevelt and Lodge proved that friendship can endure in the hostile world of power politics.
